Veblen Goods

The reason is that humans strongly value status and continuously create scarce goods, namely Veblen goods, to achieve it. As material abundance increases, people become more obsessed with hierarchy, symbolism, and exclusivity rather than absolute wealth, and things made directly by humans or requiring significant human time become the core of value. Historically, wealth was defined not by material possessions but by "whom one controls," and in modern times, this has transformed into positional goods like Veblen goods. Therefore, even in a future where AI handles nearly all production, human jobs will not completely disappear. Thus, even if AI dominates production, human labor is likely to be reorganized not around efficiency but around creating status signals.